Archive

Its that time of the year now when the summer vacations of the children start and we are planning another holiday or a Driving Vacation as I like to call it. I would be writing another blog post soon on where we will be visiting this time of the year but for now I will post the mechanical maintenance that I’ve performed on the vehicle in the last 10K Kms. The Odometer now reads 155000 Kms and there a lot that I’ve done on the vehicle in this time.

NEW ALLOY WHEEL

I bought another Alloy Rim and now after the disastrous experience of me bursting 2 tyres within 24 hours I always carry 2 spare tyres with myself.

Like this:

The first set of pictures for the OTR event organised by Northern Motorsports to show the original trail which was shortlisted but had to be abandoned owing to the difficulty, for the Mahindra Great Escape, Delhi

The following vehicle is owned by Randeep Singh and details of the vehicle in his words

The Steed…

The work on my jeep has been conducted at my Uncle’s state of the art garage in Jaipur which is one of the most prominent garages in this part of the country. This garage specializes in restoration of Classics and Vintage Vehicles and I had to literally pester my Uncle to take on the project

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Some details on the work done:

The Jeeps body and chassis has been modified/extended to look identical to my uncles 89 Jeep Wrangler. Body parts of the Wrangler were used to replicate body parts for my Jeep throughout the restoration.Cosmetic:

Chassis has been extended by 5” using the bolt-on extension by Mahindra. The differential was moved forward to give it an extended wheel base.
The body tub’s side wall has been raised by 2.5” and half cut doors were customized similar to that of the wranglers. The windscreen has been lowered and tapered inwards. Bonnet has been extended by 4” to retail the wranglers long nose.
The jeep’s gone through complete denting and painting. Leaving the chassis all parts have been sprayed with acrylic putty and later sand blasted. Final coat sprayed is ICI Auto Paints P.U. The finish is semi matt, 60% gloss and 40% matt.Interiors –

Bolero dashboard fitted. No vibrations and is rock solid. Fronts seats are of a Nissan sedan. Upholstery is top of the line and has a leather like feel to it. Front and rear customized mats.Power Plant:

Engine is an Isuzu 2.4 Turbo charged diesel plus 5 speed gear box and 4WD transfer case. This engine, gearbox and transfer case combo itself cost me 65-70 grands and is a very capable piece of engineering.The engine has been cleaned/serviced. All metal pipes have been nickel plated. Fuel pump has been overhauled and re-calibrated. Alternator and self have been serviced.
Koyo power steering has been fitted after servicing. It performs well and there are no leakages whatsoever.Not to mention that the power steering has been fixed inside the bonnet/ hood area and not on the front bumper.Tyres:

The vehicle is also performing extremely well on OTR and I am using it as a daily driver in the city too. The road worthiness of the vehicle can be judged from the countless trips we have done from Delhi to Hissar (my native place) and the vehicle is extremely stable on highways, with raw amounts of power at the disposal of the driver. I am proud to say that it can be driven anywhere in India with the start of the key.
Also the preparation of the vehicle took almost a year and has been done under the personal supervision of my uncle.
The price that I’ve demanded is just the cost I have incurred on the vehicle. This doesn’t even cover my out of pocket expenses not to mention the countless phone calls and visits to Jaipur.
The best part of the vehicle is that registration. It is a RJ14, registered in Jaipur and not somewhere like Zira in Punjab, which to be frank is a little shoddy. My registration is 100% genuine and can be verified and transferred very easily.

Interior Pictures

The gear lever in the above picture shows that the gear configuration in 4Fwd and 1 Rev. The knob is wrong and in actual the vehicle has 5 Fwd and 1 Rev

Another thing that I would like to add here is that as far as the vehicle is concerned, all the details, the good and especially the bad have been documented in real time in the above thread, on Teambhp. So there will be no hidden surprises to whosoever buys the vehicle as the history of the vehicle is an open book for everyone to see and observe and take an opinion on. Secondly many of the decisions while the vehicle was being built were taken from the heart with the intention that i’ll be keeping this forever, so even if we were to leave aside the money spent on her for for one sec, the hardwork, patience, etc that had gone into this vehicle can’t ever be compared to the countless chop shop jobs that we see in areas like Mayapuri, Mandi Dabwali or Moga.

Water crossings, river crossings, steep inclines, you name it and its a cakewalk for this jeep